National mineral water

Transcripts - National mineral water

1.
National Mineral Water Co.
(NMWC) is the oldest natural mineral
water company in Oman, having started
trading in 1979. The company has devel-
oped gradually over the years, eventually
reaching its current turnover of around
OMR 10 million (US$25.9 million).
The history of the company can be
traced back to a hydrology investigation
carried out by the French company Evian,
a global leader in the field of natural min-
eral water. Mr Pugh tells us more: “Evian
identified the best local source of mineral
water in Oman, in a place called Tanuf,
in the Ad Dakhiliyah governorate. In this
part of the Middle East, natural sources
of water are generally found in long ravines
called ‘wadis’, which contain water only
EUROASIA INDUSTRY | 32 | EUROASIA INDUSTRY
NATURAL
PROGRESSIONSABCO Group’s National Mineral Water Co. SAOG is the clear leader in
Oman’s bottled water market, and is celebrating its 35th anniversary this
year. Managing Director, Mr John Pugh, speaks to Sarah Pursey about the
company’s cultural and historical roots in Oman, its sought-after brands
and its fresh focus on health-related drinks. Written by Gemma Carter.
‡
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during times of heavy rain. That water
eventually ends up in subterranean arte-
sian wells, and it is becoming increasingly
precious throughout the MENA region.
Indeed, as the years go by, access to water
will arguably become more valuable than
access to oil, particularly in countries
with growing populations.”
NMWC started out as a family-run
operation, owned by theAl Busaidi family,
and it is currently listed on the MSM
(Muscat Securities Market), although
the Al Busaidi family retains a substan-
tial shareholding in the business. A
major shareholder in the company is
SABCO Group, which was established
in the 1970s and has since grown signifi-
cantly to become an integrated investment,
commercial, industrial and services organ-
isation. Indeed, SABCO Group is a pres-
tigious family-owned business house in
Oman, comprising multi-faceted busi-
nesses that are leaders in their respec-
tive fields. Within the group’s portfolio,
for example, is a company called Oman
Perfumery LLC, which is renowned for
creating some of the world’s most finely
crafted and exotic fragrances. Its flagship
brand isAmouage, which is aimed at roy-
alty and VIP customers, and is reputedly
the most expensive perfume in the world.
Wholly natural water
The company’s natural water source is
located in the foothills of the JabalAkhdar
(Arabic for ‘The Green Mountain’), which
is part of the Al Hajar Mountains, the
highest mountain range in the eastern
Arabian Peninsula. Rainwater gradually
percolates through various layers of gravel
and limestone, losing many of its con-
taminants en route through a process of
natural filtration, while also picking up
numerous beneficial minerals, as it col-
lects on a bedrock of limestone more
than 100 metres below the ground.
NMWC then extracts the water via
several drilled boreholes, as Mr Pugh
explains: “Once we have extracted the
water, the first part of production is a
water softening process, which is carried
out, if required, to reduce the hardness
of the water, and we use sand filter sys-
tems to remove any impurities or sediment
that may be present. The water passes
through various levels of filtration until
it is completely free of impurities.
“Then, the water undergoes a process
of reverse osmosis, which ensures that
the natural minerals present in the water
are balanced – a heavy concentration of
sodium, for example, is not desirable. The
balance of the water is subject to variation
depending on the state of the ground-
water,” he notes, “and may require an
injection of additional natural minerals
if those minerals are absent, perhaps due
to heavy dilution as a consequence of an
abundance of new water coming into the
well.Also at this point, we utilise pharma-
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ceutical-grade microfiltration to remove
any particles that may still exist, down to
a minimum size of 0.2 microns. This unit
is also capable of removing any microbi-
ological contaminants, and it is moni-
tored on an hourly basis.”
Next, the water is put through an
ultraviolet filtration process, which is an
additional product sterilisation method,
before a further ozone disinfection process
that uses a highly reactive form of oxygen.
“Indeed, the entire screening process is
a highly meticulous procedure throughout
which the quality testing that was carried
out at the original source is compared
and is monitored for any anomalies,”
Mr Pugh affirms.
Brands with a background
Once all of these operations have been
completed, the bottle filling process can
commence – NMWC produces its own
PET bottles on-site. “As would be expected,
bottling is carried out under cleanroom
conditions, to ensure that it takes place
within a microbiologically controlled envi-
ronment,” Mr Pugh points out. “We invest
continuously in our facilities in order to
ensure that we are providing a premium
product that, being a consumer product,
is able to meet or exceed the strict regu-
lations that are in place with regard to
process controls, purity and safety. We are
visited often by the relevant authorities,
which have to make sure that our factory
is in premium condition, and our food
safety management system is HACCP-
and ISO 22000-certified. We have more
than 100 people working at the factory,
while our general management, sales man-
agement, financial management and logis-
tics operations are based in Muscat.”
The bottled water is then transported to
the company’s warehouse, and from there
it is distributed to retail outlets on a daily
basis. “We have seven depots and a fleet
of distribution vehicles, and each of the
regions we serve has its own merchan-
disers and sales teams,” he continues. “We
serve not only the large retail chains, like
Carrefour, Al Fair and LuLu, but also the
general retail trade. We deliver six-packs
of bottled water in shrink-wrap, in one-
litre and 500ml bottles, as well as six-litre
twin-packs and five-gallon returnable and
non-returnable containers for water coolers
in both offices and residences.
“Our champion brand, as it were, is
the Tanuf brand because it originates from
Tanuf, which has a historical relationship ‡
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with the heritage and development of
Oman. Tradition such as this has been
very important to the longevity and con-
tinued success of the company. I recently
met the buyer for the InterContinental
Hotels Group, for example, and he was
quick to inform me that when his father
wanted a drink of water, he would ask for
“a glass of Tanuf”. Indeed, the Tanuf brand
is deeply rooted in Omani culture and his-
tory,” Mr Pugh reports. “Our other brands
include El-Jabal El-Akhdar, Salsabeel
and Assaha. We have a longstanding
strategic partnership with Red Bull,
whereby we are responsible for routing
to market and selling Red Bull-branded
products in Oman.”
NMWC also distributes facial tissues
bearing the same brand names as its bot-
tled water. “It is common in the Middle
East for mineral water bottling companies
to also produce and sell tissues, but that
is not the result of some cultural associ-
ation between water and tissues,” he clari-
fies. “The branded tissue boxes simply act
as a marketing tool to further reinforce
the brand name of the mineral water.”
Providing healthy beverages
Having been appointed as NMWC’s
new Managing Director late last year, Mr
Pugh is in the process of overhauling the
company’s product portfolio and finding
innovative ways in which to differentiate
NMWC from other bottled water pro-
ducers in Oman. “For example, we are
looking to add larger-sized tissues or per-
fumed tissues to our product offering,”
he reveals. “Unfortunately, however, if we
are successful, the biggest compliment
we will receive is that our competitors
will follow suit.
“Under my direction, the company is
narrowing its focus to concentrate entirely
on health-related beverages, such as nat-
ural mineral water and isotonic drinks
for people taking part in sporting activi-
ties,” states Mr Pugh. “We no longer
market imported soft drinks and juices
of questionable quality, for example, or
drinks containing E numbers and artifi-
cial colourings. Other companies oper-
ating in the Omani market tend to be
general beverage suppliers – Coca-Cola
and PepsiCo, for example, distribute soft
drinks as well as bottled water in Oman
– whereas we are trying to send out a mes-
sage that NMWC represents healthy prod-
ucts, and this is the direction in which
we are heading.”
Part of that message is education,
and to that end the company has started
receiving visits from groups of school-
children at its facilities in Tanuf. “We
had our first visit in January, when we
received 80 children from the British
School Muscat,” he recalls. “In order to
educate young people on the precious
nature of natural water, we show them
around our facilities, explain how
everything works and give them
some mementos.”
Mr Pugh also points out that unlike
NMWC’s products, not all bottled water
is from a natural source. “Some of our
competitors’ water is desalinated water
that has previously been used in indus-
tries such as hydroelectric power gener-
ation – this does not mean that it is bad
water, but it is water that has been recy-
cled. Our water, however, is natural water
from an artesian well, which is very dif-
ferent from taking water from a munic-
ipal source and subjecting it to the same
purification processes.”
Aiming for the top
The future is extremely bright for NMWC,
with demand for bottled water expected
to continue growing strongly in Oman
and throughout the Middle East. “Indeed,
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar are
among the top consumers of bottled
water in the world, which is amazing
when you consider the relatively small
size of the populations in those coun-
tries,” Mr Pugh remarks. “Incredibly, the
UAE consumes more than 200 litres per
capita, which is a phenomenal amount.
Moreover, all of the Arab countries com-
bined only hold about 1.1 percent of
the renewable freshwater in the world,
while they contain around 4.6 percent
of the global population. As a result, bot-
tled water sales are expected to grow sig-
nificantly – possibly by as much as 20
percent per annum.
“Going forward, our portfolio will
include a combination of internationally
recognised brands, like Red Bull, together
with a strong focus on high-quality prod-
ucts that are produced locally in accor-
dance with our specifications. This will
likely lead to the formation of additional
strategic partnerships in the future.
Innocent Drinks, for instance, the UK-
based producer of fruit smoothies and
juices, has no interest in supplying any
of its products into the Middle East
market, and I know that because I have
been in touch with them. We are cur-
rently exploring the potential demand for
and benefit of providing these kinds of
products in the Oman market. Essentially,
it is our intention to become the number
one provider of health-based drinks in
Oman,” he concludes. o
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